


Folie à Deux

by raphae11e



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: (also sort of), (feelings are hard), (sort of), Arguing, Conflict Resolution, Internal Conflict, M/M, Revenge, Violent Markus (Detroit: Become Human), Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 18:06:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15913497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raphae11e/pseuds/raphae11e
Summary: War is violent, and contradictory, and often cruel. As Markus and Simon come to understand, emotions can be even more so.





	Folie à Deux

Markus has never considered himself to be intolerant. His programming, after all, has always dictated the exact opposite. He is to be patient, mild-mannered; that’s the intended nature of a caretaker android. Most of the time, this poise and restraint is what his people see in him, and he’s glad to provide them with that small comfort. They look to a leader with a calm voice and steady hand.

The humans, however, are a different story entirely.

His anger-- the molting, festering mass of it that rests in his chest-- is directed mostly towards the statistics. The numbers North rattles off to him when he asks about casualties in this war of attrition. The whispers and rumors he hears of human brutality, of androids beaten to death and tortured and torn apart like the humans are so many rabid dogs. These things all shake him deeply, but he feels a disconnection to them, like he supposes anyone might when they’re a step removed from such a tragedy. He feels his people’s pain, but he doesn’t _feel_ it.

He supposes that it should have only been a matter of time.

Late in January, months after the beginning of their revolution, snow coats Jericho’s rusted skeleton in great blankets, and Markus is waiting. He’s still busy, of course, but he can’t focus. Half of his mind is several miles away, where he knows Simon and several other androids have ventured in search of blue blood and biocomponents. The visibility is terrible, the winds harsh and biting, and PL600s are more susceptible to the cold. Markus has been meaning to talk to Simon about replacing his temperature regulator-- but, then again, he’s been meaning to talk to Simon about a lot of things. All of them make Markus’s blood turn to lead in his veins.

Better to remain silent, he thinks, about the way his ire sometimes seems to choke him. Holding his tongue is a small price to pay for Simon’s affection.

And so late in January, Markus is waiting, and praying that Simon will return safely. He’s pacing the floor of their meeting room; the only sound his the echo of his frenetic footsteps. But on his next stride, a sudden burst of static in his head warns him of an incoming comm link, and his thoughts are filled with nothing but _shock-fear-pain._ They aren’t his own emotions, but Markus’s knees nearly buckle at their strength.

He knows the feel of this mind against his.

 _Simon?_ he calls out. Even mentally, his voice seems to shake. There’s no response, but seconds later he hears a commotion erupt downstairs, and it only takes a second to connect the dots.

When he reaches the first floor, Markus finds Simon being supported between two other androids, and all he can see is blue.

One of them-- a WR400-- sees him coming, and is quick to explain. “There were humans,” he says. “Anti-android protestors. We separated for a bit, and they caught Simon on his own, and--”

“Why didn’t you stay together?” Markus hisses. “How could you do something so _stupid?”_ His teeth are clenched in a snarl, bared at a threat no longer in sight-- at a threat that Markus never had any influence over to begin with.

The androids before him are straw men in the face of his anger. Eyes wide, shoulders hunched, they look at him with wounded and beaten expressions. For the first time, Markus sees _fear_ there. It gutters the flame inside him faster than he could have imagined.

A brief brush of fingers over his shoulder gets his attention. “M-Markus.”

The tension seeps out of him at the sound of that voice. “Simon,” he replies, turning back the PL600, the word painfully soft. One of Simon’s eyes is shut-- an automatic response to protect his more delicate parts when they’re under attack. Blood cakes his right temple, and blood stains the grooves in his teeth, and he’s _shaking._

“Don’t,” Simon tells him. It looks like it takes a great deal of effort to say.

Instinct tells Markus’s outrage to flare up again, torrential and white-hot. It’s something that’s been happening more and more often, he’s realized, since becoming a leader. His authority being questioned is something he’s no longer used to.

Coming from Simon, though, weathers the storm before it begins. A scowl is still in place on Markus’s face, but he says nothing. He bites his tongue so hard that he tastes thirium. “Gather supplies,” he says to the other androids. “I’ll help Simon to one of the upper rooms.”

Once they’re alone, Markus finally allows himself to assess Simon’s injuries properly. One of his legs is twisted at an odd angle, and one arm is cradled against his chest, fingers covered in cracks like spiderwebs. If he were human, his pale skin would be mottled with bruises.

Through it all, Simon does nothing but watch.

“Show me,” the RK200 asks. He holds out a hand.

As their minds meet again, their proximity adding to the strength of the connection, Markus watches a memory unfold.

_Darkened buildings seen through a veil of falling snow. Cones of light cast by flickering street lights, and the pools of shadow that gather in alleyways. Rooting through garbage bins, salvaging parts from long-dead androids. The sense of being watched._

_A hand catching him on the shoulder, fingers curling in his hair, look what we’ve got here. Intact, a rare case, discontinued model. Parts should be valuable. All he’s good for._

_Faces above him. Three men: two bearded, one clean shaven. Eyes bright with hunger._

_Snow beneath his shaking body, snow melting against his palms and eyelashes as he’s beaten. Aluminum on plastic; it makes a ringing sound. Laughter, and curses through clenched teeth, said with mirth and self-satisfaction. Feeling sick and_ angry, _stomach roiling, head reeling, please stop. Please, please._

_Please help. A flash of a memory before his eyes, and the sight of mismatched irises._

Markus pulls away like he’s been burned, breath coming in great, heaving pants. When he blinks, his eyes are wet. He scrubs at them with the back of one hand. _“Fuck,”_ he grinds out. He doesn’t meet Simon’s eyes when he says it.

This pierces him in a way that his desperate crawl through the android graveyard hadn’t. At least then, he’d been in control. Half-blind, half-deaf, crippled beyond recognition, he’d still had the means to pull himself out of that nightmare. But this… this is the very definition of helplessness.

Markus’s throat is painfully tight, and Simon’s eyes are painfully _gentle._

“Promise me,” Simon says then. His voice sounds like a fledgeling, and Markus wants to kneel at his feet. “Promise me you won’t.”

And oh, how he knows Markus all too well, because even as the memory had threatened to consume him, Markus had been sure to memorize those faces. He knows their very bone structure. He could peel away the skin and still recognize them from the parts beneath.

Markus’s blood feels leaden in his veins. “I won’t,” he replies, and he thinks they both know it’s a lie.

 

It’s not until nearly a month later that the situation once again rears its ugly head.

Simon is still bedridden, shaken physically and mentally from his attack, and he feels painfully _useless._ He hasn’t felt this way since long before the revolution: back when they all lived in darkness and fear without even a shred of hope to guide them.

Back when they didn’t have Markus.

Now, he is forced to sit in relative silence as history happens around him: on the other side of thick, rusting walls, and miles away across the barren and snowy cityscape. It forces him to _think._ More than anything else, Simon finds his mind drifting to the thought of that familiar odd-eyed stare.

The fighting has changed Markus. Sometimes, he seems just as distant and cold as those far-off battles for their freedom; other times, he’s nothing but warm touches and slow, cautious smiles. Simon knows what a burden he carries, and what _anger_ hangs over him like a pall. The night of his attack had not been the first time he’d seen that emotion seep through the cracks of Markus’s calm facade.

It doesn’t escape his notice that Markus’s resolve seems to be weakest when it comes to Simon. So when Markus returns from the most recent conflict with his jaw set and his shoulders tight, the PL600 knows _something_ has happened.

He knows that their people had met again with a group of anti-android protestors. He knows that fighting had broken out before either side could attempt to negotiate. He knows that for the past hour, even _North_ has been chewing Markus out for the reckless maneuver.

Realization dawns quickly on him after that. He wishes that it wouldn’t. Sometimes, he’d prefer to remain in the dark.

They evade the topic for days after Markus’s return, like a delicate, careful dance on a knife’s edge. Simon finds himself thinking often of that yawning gap between them. Sometimes there are brief stretches of time where everything seems _normal_ again. The two of them will sit or-- as Simon’s condition improves-- lie together, and Markus will _smile,_ and Simon forgets the cold sting of that lack of trust.

Until he holds out a hand, skin peeling away to white, and Markus’s face inevitably falls.

The beginning of the ends starts with an argument. They’re in their bedroom, Simon standing in front of the door to dissuade Markus from leaving. Neither of them seem willing to yield.

“There are some things you just don’t need to know about, Simon.”

“Oh, are there?” he replies. “And who are _you_ to make that choice for me, Markus? I’m not a child.”

Markus sighs, sounding ragged and defeated. “I know. But that doesn’t mean--”

“Doesn’t mean what?” Simon clenches his hands at his sides. Anger wells up in his chest: Markus doesn’t even have the decency to _look_ at him as they fight. “Doesn’t mean that you need to _trust_ me?” he asks. “Doesn’t mean that I have a right to know what’s happening out _there_ as I’m stuck _here_ , after an attack that wasn’t even my fault?”

At that, Markus’s reply is almost instant. “No, it wasn’t your fault,” he agrees. His eyes flash, bright as embers set into his handsome face. “It was _theirs.”_

Simon takes a step forward. He thinks he sees the RK200 flinch at the movement. “Markus,” he says, “We can’t lash out at all humans for the actions of just a few. They don’t deserve it.”

That seems to give Markus pause. He looks away, hardened gaze focusing on some distant corner of the room. “That wasn’t my intention,” he murmurs. “Things got out of hand.”

Simon reaches out, palm up, and pleads, _“Show_ me.”

Just as every time before, he’s met with resistance. Markus gives him a brief glance from under thick lashes-- not coy, not coaxing, but _ashamed._ Like the weight of the world has settled on his shoulders from that simple request.

When he opens his mouth, though, his words are anything but remorseful. “Just let it _go,_ Simon,” he says. “It doesn’t concern you.”

And finally, Simon has had enough. “A situation that stemmed from me nearly _dying_ is one that _doesn’t concern me?”_

Markus stiffens, realizing he’s touched a nerve. “Simon, I didn’t mean--”

It’s already too late. Before either of them have a chance to think, Simon is crossing the distance between them. Markus tries to back away, but Simon gets his fingers around one dark wrist, and then their skin is splitting as their minds are forced violently together.

 _Simon. Simon, Simon, Simon._ The abrupt nature of the connection has left Markus’s mind vulnerable in a way it rarely is, and his thoughts are left gutted under Simon’s onslaught. Memories hit him at a rapid fire pace. _Fear and pain across a mental link. A broken body supported by careful hands, eyes glazed in pain, blue, so much blue._

Then the scene changes. _Traveling across the winter-laden city. Approaching figures on the horizon, the sound of jeers muffled by snow. Faces and fists clenched in anger._

_Faces he recognizes. Three men, two bearded, one clean shaven._

_His vision turns_ red.

 _Violence breaks out: punches thrown, shots fired, blunt objects thudding against flesh and plastic. His fingers around someone’s throat. His knuckles slick with someone’s blood. His teeth are bared, and he sees_ fear _on those faces, and this time, it doesn’t give him pause._

Their minds separate even more violently than they’d merged. Abruptly pulled out of Markus’s memories, Simon feels unmoored and shaken and _sick_ in the waking world. His hands hover in front of him, half curled, still poised to wrap their fingers around someone’s wrist.

He hadn’t even felt Markus pull out of his physical grip. He does, however, feel when Markus fists a hand in the front of his shirt, and simply _holds_ him there.

It’s the equivalent of grabbing a dog by its scruff. Simon is immobilized, eyes wide and stinging with tears, throat tight and burning with unsaid words. In front of him, mismatched irises are ringed in white, and every breath comes shallow and labored.

 _“Don’t,”_ Markus says. He sounds like he’s being _strangled._ “Don’t, Simon.”

Shame coils itself in Simon’s gut. He wants nothing more than to curl in on himself, to shrink away, because hearing the pain in Markus’s voice and knowing he’s at least partially to blame is almost too much to bear.

Forcing a mental connection is an extreme measure, a last resort when one of their kind is incapable of consenting to it. Here, it is an incredible breach of trust. Some wounded part of Simon thinks it’s only fair, considering how quickly Markus had broken his own promise.

All he’d wanted were some  _answers._ And in wanting that, he’s only made things worse.

As he takes in the defeated stoop of Markus’s shoulders, though, he knows he doesn’t have the heart to hold a grudge. That would be a cruel answer to a mistake so well-intentioned, one born out of love and fear and misplaced anger.

“I’m sorry,” Simon says into the silence. “I shouldn’t have.”

Markus’s stormy expression quiets. His face is still tinged with that all-too-familiar guilt, and it presses against the chambers of Simon’s heart until they threaten to give way. “I never meant to hurt you,” he murmurs. The truth is evident in his words, a silent apology clear in the way his hand finds Simon’s once more.

Simon smiles. Heartsickness still pervades its corners, but is beginning to fade. “Nor I, you,” he replies. He means it as an absolution, and he feels Markus relax against him in relief.

As much as his chest aches and his lungs burn, already Simon can feel his hurt starting to soothe. After all, it’s no great secret that he’s never been able to deny Markus anything.

**Author's Note:**

> A commission for tumblr user skyriazeth! Thanks again!!!!!! ♡
> 
> And real quick, sorry I've been MIA for a bit, y'all! My classes have started for the semester and I'm trying to get acclimated while also still trying to write. It's tough!!!! But expect some new Markus/Simon content soon from yours truly. B^) I'm gonna ride out this kick of inspiration until I die lmao.


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